


Clint Barton Watches

by Toshiba01



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 17:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2117793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toshiba01/pseuds/Toshiba01
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>So, this is more head-canon involving Clint's observations about the others.  Just a bit of fun and grammar-butchery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Clint Barton Watches

     

     Clint Barton, code name “Hawkeye” watched the others while they went about the meal-time tasks which included not allowing Tony anywhere near food anyone might want to eat.  Hawkeye routinely kept an eye on everyone.  Seriously, everyone.  After his adventures in mind-control with an extra-terrestrial narcissist with daddy issues, Clint kept his preternaturally good vision trained on everyone.  It’s not paranoia if you’ve already been got. The natural consequence was that he saw things sometimes missed by others.  Given his career as a marksman, spy, and assassin, this was to be expected amongst strangers, but now the archer took in a lot of information about the people who had become his teammates.  For instance, Clint saw the things that everybody saw about Tony – that he was not-so-secretly kind, that he genuinely loved Pepper; that he wanted to do good.  Clint also saw Tony’s many near break-downs, his tendency to grip tightly to anyone he thought could be a true friend, and his child-like love of toys especially the ones he made himself.   Clint could not actually see JARVIS, but accepted him as a person and spoke to him accordingly.  JARVIS returned the favor allowing Clint glimpses into the humor that had developed as JARVIS learned from his interactions with others.  JARVIS had a finely tuned sense of the ridiculous which he was more than willing to share in the form of snarky stories about what he saw with his all-seeing eye.  

     Hawkeye considered Bruce.  Bruce’s estimation of his own anger was not understated.  He was gentle and kind and tired and very, very angry.  His anger ran under the surface of his personality like a river of magma, just waiting to burst out.  Bruce’s anger manifested itself in sharp quips and silence.  If Bruce was quiet for any extended period of time when he was not alone or working, it was best to approach with great care.  Bruce was able to keep the Hulk under wraps but had learned the gentle art of efficient verbal evisceration as one of his outlets.  This kind of outburst rarely happened and Bruce was always very sorry when it did, but he did not apologize and did not promise it would never happen again. Hulk was simple; Bruce was definitely not.

     Nat was Nat.  Clint’s other half.  She was the only person that wasn’t a source of anxiety.  Clint watched her mostly for respite.

     Cap was, as he was reputed to be, straight-forward and committed to doing what he thought was right no matter what.  Steve Rogers sometimes wanted to be different, sometimes wanted to take an easier road where he did not feel so responsible for everything.  In this sense, he was very much the young man he had been before the war.  What he wanted most was a good job, maybe in art, a girlfriend, some fun, and later a house and family. And Bucky.  His tastes remained simple.  Steve took out his frustrations in physical activity and when things got to be too much he retreated into sleep or jokes.  He took naps like he was a toddler.  He played pranks as often as Tony and ate as though for a world record.  Bucky was another story.  Clint watched him warily, not trying to understand what made him tick, just making sure his Red Room training didn’t suddenly take wings and fly into Clint’s face.  Bucky was too much like Nat when she’d first come in from the cold.  Nonetheless, Clint felt a strange sort of kin-ship with the former Winter Soldier and offered him as much support and comfort as he was able given they both were completely and utterly paranoid.  Bucky did kind of remind Clint of the replicant Roy in Blade Runner especially when he started to stare.  Bucky never tried to kill Clint and so Clint thought this was progress.   Besides, Nat liked him.  She might not have completely trusted her former comrade-in-arms-and-assaination, but she liked him.  It was a good recommendation.  

     Thor hid an uncommon stateliness with an equally uncommon wisdom covered with a seemingly thoughtless joviality.   Thor seemed constitutionally unable to summon the kind of underhandedness of Loki, but he was far from a “witless oaf” to use Loki’s words.  His dealings were direct and without guile.  Thor’s greatest difficulty was his lack of flexibility.  Once set on a course, he was difficult to dissuade whether it was a determination to seek out new street food vendors or a particular course of action in battle.  The only people who could turn Thor in another direction (aside from Cap when the team assembled) were Jane and Darcy.  Hawkeye actually did not see a lot of Jane—what he did see was that Jane seemed intelligent and sane and erudite except when in a science-induced frenzy.  Jane kept her feelings hidden under a mask of rationality and science up to the point where lack of sleep or food or Thor’s varied inducements got to her.  Darcy, not technically an Avenger, was the most normal of them all – and didn’t that say a lot about their particular asylum.  Darcy looked and sounded like a typical directionless twenty-something fresh out of college.  The reality was far different.  Darcy was quietly multi-lingual and an accomplished hacker.  She could organize insanity into sanity and manage difficult people without allowing them to know how much they were being managed.  Darcy even managed Clint – passing him food, mix-tapes, and once, a teddy bear whenever she thought he needed comfort.  Her ability to pass under the radar was only rivaled by Phil’s ability to appear average.   It had been Darcy who had talked Clint into working for Stark’s new security  . . . whatever-it-was.  Of course, she had also tried to sell him to Stark for a ludicrously low price but that was another issue.  Upon his return from Afghanistan, Clint had gone to the Tower looking for anyone familiar since he had seen the mess that was no longer SHIELD.  He was exhausted and nearly without hope. Darcy had met Clint in the lobby, taken him by the hand, and led him to Maria after pointing to a sign that promised that “unattended soldiers and spies will be sold as slaves.”  Darcy’s weakness was that she didn’t quite believe in her own importance to the team.  She recognized her abilities, but could not see that her personality and kindness made her an ideal match for the rag-tag Avengers.  Oh well, if she were completely well-adjusted, she’d just leave. 

     Maria Hill was still scary.  He’d just leave it at that. 

     Clint’s greatest sadness was that he could not keep his eye on Phil.  One day . . . 

**Author's Note:**

> Is anyone but me surprised that Darcy never gets recruited by AIM?


End file.
